Diving Kwajalein Atoll- The Wildcats 

Glad you enjoyed it, have a great 2023!

Glad you liked it! Have a great 2023!

Hi Steve, thanks for the compliments on the video! I'm a bit envious that you get to see the Wildcats and Martet so easily- I have yet to see a dry one up close. As you can tell from the video, the ones I've been close to are all rather wet. Perhaps one day I'll see one up close, and hoping that one of them is the Hickory plane that is a Kwajalein veteran. :)

Maybe you need to come back out this way and get some more water time. ;)

It still is being used as such. :)

Thanks for the visit

Thanks

Yeah, I can only imagine the freaking out when you showed up at the house carrying grenades and mortar rounds...LOL!

@@danfarnham6275 That pile of grenades was about a hundred feet offshore in about fifteen feet of water so I didn't take them home. We were catching fish for the aquarium and I pointed them to my dad But I did bring home a mortar in my little red wagon one day along with other rusty metal I still have some of those bullets sixty years later

Did you go and visit The Prinz Eugen

@@brinkee7674 several times. My parents would dive around while I snorkeled or played on the beach on Carlson

I grew up around the remains of Buckingham Army Airfield which was a gunnery school during WW2. A lot of pits were bulldozed and all kinds of equipment pushed in and buried. A friend found a belt with 50 cal rounds. As a kid we found buckets of 30 and 50 cal bullets. I still have some.

Hi Rick! I'm very familiar with VMB-613's website- two of my underwater photos of the PBJ's on the bottom of the lagoon are on the site. I corresponded with Robert Yanacek quite a bit some years back. I'm planning a video that shows the PBJ wrecks, similar to the Wildcat video. I'll be doing some good profiling of VMB-613 as well, since all 11 PBJ's on the bottom of the lagoon are former -613 planes. On that note- did your father-in-law have any photos from his time with the squadron? I'd love to discuss this further with you.

@@danfarnham6275 Hi Dan. Thanks for replying. I don't believe Mike(my father in law) had any photos that I know of but I just happened to remember a briefcase he had devoted to VMB-613. Reunions and stuff. I will see if I can locate it. Mike was an armorer on those aircraft. He related stories about the 75mm gun. Hard to believe that the Marines had a flying tank. As a funny side note, when I met my wife I got the Marine indoctrination at all times. What could I say, I was only a Vietnam era ARMY reservist attached to the 82nd Airborne. My dad on the other hand spent 4 years aboard the CVE-1 USS Long Island. He was quartermaster (on the bridge) So I had both relating stories about the South Pacific. My dad taught me about aircraft aboard carriers so the Wildcats are very familiar to me. Did you know they have a restored F4F on display at O'Hare airport. The Long Island transported aircraft to bases all over the Pacific. They were the carrier that launched the first Marine squadrons on Guadalcanal. Dad said something about P-38s and P-47's on the deck heading for New Guinea. Something other that F4Fs, TBMs, and SBDs. In a way I have tried to keep up with WWII Naval and Marine aviation. Looking forward to more of your videos. RK

@@rickklein7792 would it be okay if we move this conversation to email? If so, please feel free to email me at kwajwreckdiver@gmail.com. Lots of details to discuss and I have some VMB-613 info you might be interested in. Hope we can chat via email!

@@danfarnham6275 Roger that Dan. I have some info I have obtained from a small locker belonging to my FIL. I'll send some scans along shortly. RK

Too many years of immersion in warm saltwater unfortunately.

Did you get a chance to talk to the pilot? As you're well aware we are losing our WWII vets faster and in more numbers as they get up there in age. Any chance to talk to them and record their stories is a chance that cannot be missed if at all possible.

@@danfarnham6275 Just to say hello to him, there was quite a crowd at that moment. I have talked to quite a few WWII veterans and pilots and crew. I used to go to the Fly In every year from 87 to 95-ish. I'm a veteran myself and also worked at a veterans home and have talked to many. One of the most interesting was a vet from the USS Curtis during the last nuclear bomb test at Bikini atoll. He swears they were 16 miles from the atoll which was as far as he could see from his watch position. History says the Curtis was 21 miles away. Much later on he piloted a smaller craft with reporters on board as close as he could get, "to that boiling mess without losing buoyancy". He had six different types of cancer but still lived to almost 90.

Not entirely true. In close to Ebeye is an area you need to be careful in, but that's about it.

Hi Mike, There is no dive guide or charter here- Kwajalein Atoll is a restricted military installation, and the only people (besides the resident Marshallese who live here), are working for the US Army. You have to be on official US government travel orders to access the island. The only dive operations that come through here are the occasional live-aboard that stops at the Prinz Eugen wreck on the way to Bikini Atoll. But they don't dive any of the planes in the lagoon. Sorry for the bad news.

@@danfarnham6275 well that sucks. I actually embed with the military on various media assignments quite often tho, so perhaps the military will give me access to do that & produce a story about it. I’ll pursue that avenue. Thanks for the reply

Hi Tim! Glad you like the video! I haven't built any models in about 12 years or so, I don't really have the time, or display space or work space in my quarters. But I still get cool kits from time to time to add to the stash. One day I'll be back into the hobby again in a serious way! :)

It is. With history mixed in to give context to the wrecks.

Thanks!